Gretta Vosper

"The United Church is the only denomination in the world that could declare the Bible is not the authoritative word of God for all time. And that needs to be said by a major recognized denomination in order to undermine every single statement that is made by any religious extremist group — that their document, whether it’s the Bible, the Qur’an or the Bhagavad Gita, is not a divinely authored piece from some supernatural source."

"What people kept saying is how can a minister who says she doesn’t believe in God be a minister in the Christian church?"

"We were looking for someone deemed to be progressive-thinking. [West Hill as a congregation that wanted to] explore new roads in its spiritual journey."

"Anecdotally my sense is there are a lot of ministers who maybe wouldn’t say it as forcefully as Gretta would, but at the end of the day they don’t really believe in anything resembling traditional Christianity."

"You are stealing the tradition of a noble religion and using it when you are preaching the exact opposite of what they believe"

"A minister who is not suitable, cannot be effective. To assess suitability, the review committee may ask the minister to answer the ordination questions again, starting with: Do you believe in God?"

"Gretta has called herself 'an atheist minister'. While that language is startling to some, the Christian academy knows exactly what she is saying. To refer to oneself as an 'atheist' does not mean that one is asserting that there is no God; it means that the 'theistic' definition of God is no longer operative or believable."

"Whether or not Gretta Vosper is a minister is a decision that is made by a regional body called a conference, and Gretta Vosper is not in London Conference, which is the conference I serve"